I completely disagree with it, or more accurately think it's a null or not applicable argument - there's nothing to grasp onto there because the things he's pulling together are unrelated. Is Government religion. Umm no. Next question.

I mean come on:

'an actual God', oh yeah, that one up there in the clouds that we can all see and speaks unequivocally to all of us. Oh no, since that doesn't exist, I assume he means his particular God, not other peoples', and unsurprisingly that God holds the same morality that he does. Fancy that. And that should sit above the state which I would interpret as meaning he thinks his God's morality gets written into the law. It could mean he just thinks individuals can feel their God is a higher morality than the government, which is of course fine, however I don't think that's what he means and that he's launching a more a general attack on the idea that Church should keep its dirty mitts off of State.

This can be seen with the same *** marriage thing. Suddenly the #freedom thing is out the window, but he convinces himself this is ok with a common trick. Instead of representing the argument as it is, which is that religious conservatives, via the government, are the ones reaching into peoples' lives and #freedoms to legally prevent them doing something they want to do (and doesn't hurt anyone else), he instead tries to convince us that those wanting to open up the definition of marriage i.e. remove restrictions are the ones pushing into lives and making moral judgements. This is not much more than a straight up lie. In the case of gay marriage the Supreme Court and Obama are precisely the ones not making moral judgement. That's the whole point. Meanwhile he wants to continue to get the government to impose his morality on people because God.

That first quote is part of the 1/3 I don't agree with ftr.

The god/government thing depends on how you've constructed god. If you're looking at god as the literal, white bearded spiritual being who sent his son to be crucified a couple of thousand years ago then there's very little resemblance. If you're looking at god as the moral arbiter of society, the monolith that bestows providence alongside human free will, the defender of the weak and smiter of the unjust then it's extremely similar. Having to explain to people that there's a difference between legality and morality is a good example of the phenomenon. To the question of whether I'd prefer a government or a god to be these things, I'd answer neither.

The same *** marriage is actually a perfect example. Shapiro has stated many times that the same *** marriage issue for him is that religious institutions shouldn't be forced to marry gay couples if they chose not to. I completely agree with him. People should also be free to tell those institutions where they can shove it if they're of the view that they're irrelevant fossils. I'd love the for conversation to be about why the government is in ANY way involved in telling adults who they can or can not make a life commitment to. That's not a point of view I've heard expressed (almost) anywhere. We implicitly accept that the government has the right to tell people who they can marry as much as they can tell priests who they'll accept at the altar. Obama and the SC are making a moral judgement (homosexuality is ok), it's just the side that you agree with. So what you get is a debate framed by both sides as a pseudo referendum on whether homosexuality is ok. It becomes less a question of why government should be involved in the most intensely personal parts of our lives and more a question of our collective moral conscience. Again, God = Government.

"Representing the argument as it really is" is frankly a really dangerous reduction of what is an extremely complex issue. You're projecting your own prejudice on to the argument (ie. the only reason to oppose SSM is if you're a fundamentalist idiot) to dismiss a much more complex point (the government shouldn't be involved in dictating religious practice).

Lastly I think you're wrong about him wanting the morality of his God written into law (to the extent that it's not already). He didn't mention politics in that article and I can recall very little (if any) conflation of church and state in his speeches.

The god/government thing depends on how you've constructed god. If you're looking at god as the literal, white bearded spiritual being who sent his son to be crucified a couple of thousand years ago then there's very little resemblance. If you're looking at god as the moral arbiter of society, the monolith that bestows providence alongside human free will, the defender of the weak and smiter of the unjust then it's extremely similar. Having to explain to people that there's a difference between legality and morality is a good example of the phenomenon. To the question of whether I'd prefer a government or a god to be these things, I'd answer neither.

The same *** marriage is actually a perfect example. Shapiro has stated many times that the same *** marriage issue for him is that religious institutions shouldn't be forced to marry gay couples if they chose not to. I completely agree with him. People should also be free to tell those institutions where they can shove it if they're of the view that they're irrelevant fossils. I'd love the for conversation to be about why the government is in ANY way involved in telling adults who they can or can not make a life commitment to. That's not a point of view I've heard expressed (almost) anywhere. We implicitly accept that the government has the right to tell people who they can marry as much as they can tell priests who they'll accept at the altar. Obama and the SC are making a moral judgement (homosexuality is ok), it's just the side that you agree with. So what you get is a debate framed by both sides as a pseudo referendum on whether homosexuality is ok. It becomes less a question of why government should be involved in the most intensely personal parts of our lives and more a question of our collective moral conscience. Again, God = Government.

"Representing the argument as it really is" is frankly a really dangerous reduction of what is an extremely complex issue. You're projecting your own prejudice on to the argument (ie. the only reason to oppose SSM is if you're a fundamentalist idiot) to dismiss a much more complex point (the government shouldn't be involved in dictating religious practice).

Lastly I think you're wrong about him wanting the morality of his God written into law (to the extent that it's not already). He didn't mention politics in that article and I can recall very little (if any) conflation of church and state in his speeches.

I mean this whole thesis of religion being the only possible saviour against strong government is just not supported by evidence. There are tons of very religious societies in the world which do tend towards either outright tyranny (Saudi Arabia, Iran), incompetent governance (hey, at least the reverend believes in the right deity, who cares if he siphons off a bit of the church coffers)., or sectarian violence and cycles of terror from either side (Latin America, Africa). He might be talking about the evangelical tradition of settler churches, but the problem with that model is that it often fails to last more than a generation - because guess what people get influence from outside their little settler towns and see that there is more to life than finding a girl in high school and sticking with banging her missionary for the rest of your life. And the post-communist experience hardly seems to have a clear distinction between religious and non-religious countries when it comes to the size of the state and role of big government.

I would argue that the industrial decline and the commodification of labour is far more important when trying to find reasons for the decline of religious mores in America (Geert Mak's In America is good on this). And these are inescapable consequences of economic and technological freedom: capital will always be more mobile than labor, so the manufacturing can go at any moment, and you can't put the drugs back in the bottle.

I mean this whole thesis of religion being the only possible saviour against strong government is just not supported by evidence. There are tons of very religious societies in the world which do tend towards either outright tyranny (Saudi Arabia, Iran), incompetent governance (hey, at least the reverend believes in the right deity, who cares if he siphons off a bit of the church coffers)., or sectarian violence and cycles of terror from either side (Latin America, Africa). He might be talking about the evangelical tradition of settler churches, but the problem with that model is that it often fails to last more than a generation - because guess what people get influence from outside their little settler towns and see that there is more to life than finding a girl in high school and sticking with banging her missionary for the rest of your life. And the post-communist experience hardly seems to have a clear distinction between religious and non-religious countries when it comes to the size of the state and role of big government.

I would argue that the industrial decline and the commodification of labour is far more important when trying to find reasons for the decline of religious mores in America (Geert Mak's In America is good on this). And these are inescapable consequences of economic and technological freedom: capital will always be more mobile than labor, so the manufacturing can go at any moment, and you can't put the drugs back in the bottle.

Eh, I would say that there is something within Protestant (and especially Calvinist) tradition which really lends itself to this whole idea of freemen-on-the-land shtick, where social mores are powerfully enforced by convention and is highly suspicious of government (read: the Catholic Church) dictat on social positions. Look at America, look at areas of South Africa where the Dutch Reformed Church was influential etc etc.

Lastly I think you're wrong about him wanting the morality of his God written into law (to the extent that it's not already). He didn't mention politics in that article and I can recall very little (if any) conflation of church and state in his speeches.

Reading the Article, there's just a massive vibe along those lines as the principles of secular western democracy (humanism) are essentially what he is attacking to try and make his point.

The view that the state should not be involved in marriage at all is extremely unconservative. Pretty clean break between conservatives and libertarians there.

I also don't really agree with it in practice, although it's fine in theory. As things stand it needs a legal dimension to govern stuff like inheritance in the absence of a will.

It's fine in theory but that really would go against millennia of social organisation and governmental (to the extent that, like, Ancient Sumeria had a government) practice, far moreso than being fine with gay people would be. I have no problem with calling them all civil unions/partnerships/whatever for legal purposes, but I strongly question whether this is practical way to organise a society.

Eh, I would say that there is something within Protestant (and especially Calvinist) tradition which really lends itself to this whole idea of freemen-on-the-land shtick, where social mores are powerfully enforced by convention and is highly suspicious of government (read: the Catholic Church) dictat on social positions. Look at America, look at areas of South Africa where the Dutch Reformed Church was influential etc etc.

Yeah but they both ran out of things to exploit didn't they.

And the scions of the Dutch Reformed Church didn't exactly introduce a non-tyrannical government once they had their Republic.

because guess what people get influence from outside their little settler towns and see that there is more to life than finding a girl in high school and sticking with banging her missionary for the rest of your life.

They won in terms of control of federal government, but the settler spirit was still what went on to go on out west, no?

i meant more that had the calvinists won control over the country, then they would have instituted a similarly tyrannical government across the country. The South was a hotbed of state sanctioned terrorism even as it was. I'd say the western settler spirit was a product more of geography more than anything else.

Sure, but the process isn't top down. If humanity deems homosexuality to be acceptable (and I'd argue that battle's already been won) what right does a government or religious entity have to impose that as a right, either in the affirmative or negative?

Originally Posted by Redbacks

Reading the Article, there's just a massive vibe along those lines as the principles of secular western democracy (humanism) are essentially what he is attacking to try and make his point.

He's arguing against atheism, a spiritual position. That it reads to you as an attack on the pillars of our society is more evidence for the argument that we use government as a replacement for god.